Topic: SECURITY - on September 11, 2013 at 3:16:00 PM CEST
NSA violations led judge to consider viability of surveillance program
A judge on the secret surveillance court was so disturbed by the National Security Agency's repeated violations of privacy restrictions that he questioned the viability of its bulk collection of Americans' phone records, according to newly declassified surveillance documents.
Judge Reggie Walton, now the presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance (Fisa) court, imposed a significant and previously undisclosed restriction on the NSA's ability to access its bulk databases of phone records after finding that the agency repeatedly violated privacy protections.
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Topic: SECURITY - on September 11, 2013 at 3:15:00 PM CEST
Offengelegte Dokumente: NSA verletzte massiv Privatsphäre von Bürgern
Die NSA hat nach einer Klage von Bürgerrechtlern Dokumente freigeben müssen. Die belegen, dass der Geheimdienst massiv die Privatsphäre von US-Bürgern verletzte. Von 17.800 überwachten Telefonanschlüssen war offenbar nur eine geringe Anzahl von Interesse im Kampf gegen den Terror.
Washington - Der US-Geheimdienst NSA hat nach jetzt freigegebenen Dokumenten massiv die Privatsphäre von US-Bürgern verletzt. Eine Bürgerrechtsgruppe hatte auf die Offenlegung der Informationen geklagt. Die am Dienstagabend (Ortszeit) veröffentlichten Dokumente beziehen sich auf das Sammeln der Metadaten von Telefonaten in den USA zwischen 2006 und 2009, für das es oftmals keine juristische Grundlage gab. Sie zeigen, dass die NSA fast 17.800 US-Telefonanschlüsse überwachte - nur etwa 1800 seien aber im Anti-Terror-Kampf möglicherweise von Interesse gewesen, sagte ein ranghoher Geheimdienstvertreter.
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Topic: SECURITY - on September 11, 2013 at 3:14:00 PM CEST
FLYING PIG: The NSA Is Running Man In The Middle Attacks Imitating Google's Servers
Glyn mentioned this in his post yesterday about the NSA leaks showing direct economic espionage, but with so many other important points in that story, it got a little buried. One of the key revelations was about a program called "FLYING PIG" which is the first time I can recall it being clearly stated that the NSA has been running man-in-the-middle attacks on internet services like Google. This slide makes it quite clear that the NSA impersonates Google servers: There have been rumors of the NSA and others using those kinds of MITM attacks, but to have it confirmed that they're doing them against the likes of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft is a big deal -- and something I would imagine does not make any of those three companies particularly happy.
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Topic: SECURITY - on September 11, 2013 at 3:12:00 PM CEST
Manipulierter Sicherheitsstandard: US-Behörde sucht Spuren der NSA-Saboteure
Die US-Behörde Nist beschließt Standards, unter anderem Grundlagen für Verschlüsselung. Nun warnt sie vor dem Einsatz eines seit Jahren etablierten Verfahrens: Es gibt Hinweise auf eine schwere Sicherheitslücke, eingebaut von der NSA.
Das US-Normungsinstitut Nist (National Institute of Standards and Technology) warnt vor einem eigenen Standard. In einer öffentlichen Erklärung raten die Experten dringen davon ab, ein 2006 genormtes Verfahren für einen Zufallszahlengenerator zu nutzen. Die Methode wird vor allem bei Verschlüsselungsverfahren genutzt.
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Topic: SECURITY - on September 11, 2013 at 3:11:00 PM CEST
Government Announces Steps to Restore Confidence on Encryption Standards
The federal agency charged with recommending cybersecurity standards said Tuesday that it would reopen the public vetting process for an encryption standard, after reports that the National Security Agency had written the standard and could break it.
“We want to assure the I.T. cybersecurity community that the transparent, public process used to rigorously vet our standards is still in place,” The National Institute of Standards and Technology said in a public statement. “N.I.S.T. would not deliberately weaken a cryptographic standard.”
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Topic: POLICE REPORT - on September 11, 2013 at 3:09:00 PM CEST
Man allegedly punches police dog, gets bitten on penis
A MAN who was bitten on the penis after allegedly punching a police dog in the face is in police custody.
Zane Thomas Smith had been on the run for several days after an alleged robbery at Mooloolaba, where he allegedly bashed a woman and stole a motorcycle.
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Topic: POLITIK - on September 11, 2013 at 3:07:00 PM CEST
Italian lawmakers delay showdown over Berlusconi
Italian lawmakers on Tuesday pulled back from a showdown over the political future of Silvio Berlusconi after allies of the billionaire media tycoon threatened to bring down Prime Minister Enrico Letta's unstable ruling coalition.
A meeting of a cross-party Senate committee charged with deciding whether Berlusconi should be barred from the Senate following a conviction for tax fraud ended without holding a vote, easing political tensions at least for the time being.
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Topic: Space - on September 11, 2013 at 3:05:00 PM CEST
Swiss space plane to launch robotic orbital debris destroyer
Last year, the Swiss Space Center at the University of Lausanne announced the planned launch of CleanSpace One, a robotic satellite designed to grab onto large pieces of space junk and push them down towards Earth, where ablation with the atmosphere will burn up the trash. Now, in partnership with Swiss Space Systems (S3), the team is proposing using an experimental space plane to get the 30 kilogram CleanSpace One into orbit.
S3 is building an unmanned Suborbital Reusable Shuttle (SOAR) which will take off by piggybacking on an Airbus A-300. The two craft will fly up for 10 kilometers before releasing the unmanned shuttle. SOAR's engines will then fire, boosting the craft to 80 kilometers above the Earth's surface.
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Topic: MUSIK - on September 11, 2013 at 3:03:00 PM CEST
An Oral History of Electronic Music in East Germany
In conjunction with RBMA Radio’s September pop-up station in Berlin, this month we’re taking a deep dive into German music history. Today, we present the English translation of an article that first appeared in Groove. A few years ago Florian Sievers compiled Mandarinen Träume: Electronic Escapes from the Deutsche Demokraktische Republik 1981-1989 for the Permanent Vacation label. Upon its release, he tracked down the artists responsible for an oral history of electronic music in East Germany before the Wall fell.
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Topic: DRUGS - on September 11, 2013 at 3:01:00 PM CEST
Drogendealer im Görlitzer Park: Das grüne Experiment
Die Grünen wollen Cannabis im Görlitzer Park in Berlin legal verkaufen, die CDU will das Grundstück einzäunen: Am Streit um den richtigen Umgang mit Drogendealern zeigen sich die Linien der deutschen Drogenpolitik. "Ich will den Verkauf kontrollieren", sagt Bezirksbürgermeisterin Herrmann.
Berlin - Bis zum ersten Angebot dauert es keine 20 Schritte: "Dope?", fragt der junge Mann kurz hinter dem Eingang zum Görlitzer Park. Zehn Meter weiter wartet schon der nächste Dealer auf Kundschaft: "Brauchst du was?"
Ein Wochentag im "Görli", wie sie den Park hier in Berlin-Kreuzberg nennen. Es ist gerade mal 10.30 Uhr, doch die Dealer sind schon da. Sie sind immer da, an manchen Tagen bis zu hundert, so schätzt die Polizei. Massive Razzien blieben wirkungslos, nach kurzer Zeit waren die meisten Verkäufer - oder Nachrücker - zurück an ihrem Platz.
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Topic: DRUGS - on September 10, 2013 at 4:29:00 PM CEST
Afghanistan's cannabis production rises
The amount of Afghan farmland planted with cannabis fell by nearly a fifth last year after one province launched a fierce eradication campaign, but a bumper crop meant that actual production rose compared with 2011, according to the UN.
Officials in southern Uruzgan province, which borders Kandahar and Helmand, largely stamped out farming of the drug because of worries it was financing the Taliban. In 2011 there were over 1,000 hectares of the crop there, but last year under 100 hectares were sown.
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Topic: MUSIK - on September 10, 2013 at 2:49:00 PM CEST
Elvis Costello & the Roots – Wise Up Ghost: Exclusive album stream
Fans of pop trivia will know that Elvis Costello's first-ever claim to fame was that he contributed backing vocals to Secret Lemonade Drinker, the song his dad, Ross MacManus, performed for an R White's Lemonade TV advert in the 70s. Several decades later, ?uestlove of the Roots used this knowledge to woo Costello – covering the song when the latter walked on stage as a guest on the Jimmy Fallon show on US TV, where the group are installed as the in-house band.
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